The Whispering Wood lived up to its name. The fog was so creepy, it muffled the sound of the nearby stream and the distant noise of the Lannister camp. I moved through the brush like a predator, my paws finding the softest patches of moss to kill the sound of my presence.
I wasn't supposed to be here. Ned's sad, tired eyes and the unsheathed sword in the clearing still remained burned into my mind. He wanted to put the beast down to save his honor. Fine, but I wasn't going to let his honor get him killed in a war he didn't understand.
[Detection] pulsed in my mind, highlighting the heat signatures of the camp ahead. Jaime Lannister didn't believe in the Northern threat, maybe the only thing he fears might be the rumors about me. He had his men posted, but still they were looking for men, not a beast that could outrun a gale.
I bypassed the outer perimeter with a burst of [Agility], leaping over a fallen log and vanishing into the high ferns before the guard could even turn his head.
I found Jaime near a small, private fire at the edge of the officer's clearing. His golden armor was piled neatly on a camp stool, and he was dressed in a simple red tunic, splashing water on his face from a basin. He looked arrogant even in the dark, a man who thought he was the protagonist of this story and I really hated this guy.
I launched at him.
I hit him with the force of a falling tree. My shoulder slammed into his chest, driving the air from his lungs in a sharp, wheezing pop. His head hit the damp earth hard, and his eyes rolled back, losing consciousness before he could even reach for a dagger.
I gripped the back of his tunic in my teeth, avoiding the flesh, and turned back toward the dark.
We were three miles into the deep woods when the weight in my jaws moved. Jaime's boots dragged across the roots, and I heard a sharp, jagged intake of breath.
He was awake.
He didn't scream, he was too much of a soldier for that, but I felt his hand move. A hidden dirk, pulled from his boot, flashed in the moonlight. He drove it upward with a desperate move. The steel sliced a hot, stinging line across my cheek, just below my eye.
I reacted instinctively, my neck snapping to the side as I threw him. Jaime went flying, his body crashing through a thicket of briars before thudding against the base of an oak.
I stopped, the blood from the cut near my eye dripping onto the dead leaves.
Jaime struggled to his feet, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He held the dirk in his right hand, his blonde hair matted with dirt and blood from the initial fall. Even battered and cornered, the Kingslayer managed a twisted, bloody smirk.
"So, the rumors were true," he wheezed, bracing his back against the tree. "The Starks found a monster. Come on then, beast. Finish it."
I didn't give him a duel. I used [Extreme Speed].
The world turned into a gray smear. I was a blur of motion, a kinetic force that Jaime's human eyes couldn't track. Before he could even bring the knife up to guard his chest, I was on him. My jaws didn't go for his throat; they locked onto his right wrist.
There was a hollow crunch of bone and gristle.
Jaime's scream ripped through the silence of the woods, a high, agonizing sound that likely carried for miles. I tore the hand clean away, the dirk still clutched in those useless, golden fingers. I stepped back and spat the hand and the knife onto the dirt, scent of blood filling my nostrils.
Jaime collapsed, clutching the stump of his arm, his face turning ghostly pale. The arrogance was gone, replaced by the raw, shivering shock of a man who had finally met something he couldn't charm or cut.
I didn't kill him. I needed him alive for the leverage Ned would need.
I reached down and gripped him by the back of his tunic again. He didn't fight me this time. He couldn't. He just let out small, broken whimpers as I began the long, silent trek back toward the Northern side.
I moved through the shadows, a scarred beast dragging the broken Lion of the West. I knew what this meant. I had taken his hand, his pride, and his future. Ned would have his prisoner, and the war would have its turning point.
I just hoped the blood on my muzzle was enough to buy the Starks a future they didn't deserve to lose.
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